The Resilience of Serbian Cinema and Its Global Stars

By the ULTIMATE Belgrade Editorial Team

The socialist era, Avala Film and the Black Wave (1945–1990)

After the Second World War film-making was gathered into state-run studios, and Belgrade’s Avala Film, founded in 1946 on the wooded hill of Košutnjak, became one of the great studios of Yugoslavia. Early films kept to socialist realism and epic partisan war stories.

In the 1960s and early 1970s came the Black Wave (Crni talas), led largely by Belgrade film-makers: unconventional in form, darkly funny and critical of everyday socialist life, it often caught the eye of the censors, and it is now one of the most admired movements in European cinema.

From a Terazije café in 1896: how Belgrade fell for the movies →   Belgrade on film →

The modern and international era (1990s–present)

The break-up of Yugoslavia brought war and hard years, yet Serbian cinema answered the 1990s with raw, darkly satirical and award-winning films that caught the chaos of the decade.

Since 2000 the industry has modernised, with the Film Center Serbia (FCS) supporting production. Serbian films are now often made as European co-productions and win prizes at festivals from Sundance to the Berlinale.

Must-watch films: the classics and the Black Wave

To understand the country’s cinematic lens, see the foundational classics, the rebellious Black Wave and the sharp films made since.

• I Even Met Happy Gypsies (Skupljači perja, 1967): Aleksandar Petrović’s masterpiece, one of the first films to show Romani life in Vojvodina realistically, won the Grand Prix of the Jury at Cannes and an Oscar nomination.
• When I Am Dead and Pale (Kad budem mrtav i beo, 1967): Živojin Pavlović’s defining Black Wave film follows a tragicomic young drifter who tries his luck as a singer, an unfiltered portrait of its society.
• Who’s Singin’ Over There? (Ko to tamo peva, 1980): Slobodan Šijan’s dark comedy puts a ramshackle bus of passengers on the road to Belgrade on the eve of the 1941 invasion. In 1996 the Yugoslav Academy of Film Art and Science voted it the best Serbian film of 1947–1995.
• The Marathon Family (Maratonci trče počasni krug, 1982): Šijan’s second classic, about a strange dynasty of undertakers, is still quoted line by line.

Must-watch films: the contemporary masters

• Underground (Podzemlje, 1995): Emir Kusturica’s surreal epic runs from the Second World War to the wars of the 1990s, and won the Palme d’Or at Cannes.
• Pretty Village, Pretty Flame (Lepa sela lepo gore, 1996): Srđan Dragojević’s harrowing, darkly funny anti-war film traps two childhood friends on opposite sides inside a tunnel during the Bosnian war.
• Circles (Krugovi, 2013): Srdan Golubović’s powerful drama follows the long echo of one brave act in wartime, and won the World Cinema Special Jury Award at Sundance.

The iconic domestic film stars

The golden age of Avala Film and the Belgrade stage created screen icons of great dramatic weight and charisma.

• Velimir “Bata” Živojinović (1933–2016): the superstar of regional cinema and one of the most prolific actors anywhere, the hero of the great partisan epics, Walter Defends Sarajevo among them, and of art-house classics alike.
• Milena Dravić (1940–2018): the first lady of regional acting, equally at home in popular comedy and avant-garde Black Wave films. She won best supporting actress at Cannes in 1980 for Special Treatment.
• Ljubiša Samardžić (1936–2017): the much-loved actor and director nicknamed “Smoki”, whose charm lit up countless classics; he won the Volpi Cup for best actor in Venice in 1967 for The Morning (Jutro).
• Dragan Nikolić (1943–2016): the epitome of Belgrade cool, a household name from the cult series Otpisani and the comedy National Class (1979).
• Pavle Vuisić: a master of character acting with a raw, natural presence, famous for his working men and eccentric patriarchs, in films such as Who’s Singin’ Over There?
• Sonja Savić: the fiercely talented, avant-garde icon of the 1980s, star of Strangler vs Strangler and Life Is Beautiful, whose boundary-pushing roles defined a counter-culture generation.

Contemporary and cross-border talents

As the industry opened up, several Serbian actors crossed into mainstream European and international cinema.

• Miki Manojlović: one of Europe’s most respected actors, the star of Kusturica’s two Palme d’Or winners, who went on to international films such as Irina Palm (2007).
• Miloš Biković: a box-office star across Eastern Europe. After his breakout in Montevideo, God Bless You! (2010) he led some of the biggest commercial comedies and dramas of recent years in Russia.
• Stefan Kapičić: the voice of the steel-skinned mutant Colossus in Marvel’s Deadpool films, and in Deadpool 2 his facial performance too.

The Yugoslav Film Archive (Kinoteka) →   Belgrade on film →   Balkan Cinema: our long read on the whole region →

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